Laie plan gets Honolulu City Council committee OK

Brigham Young University-Hawaii officials have submitted an application to the city for about 1,000 dormitory beds at its Laie campus just as the Honolulu City Council is considering giving sister-affiliate Hawaii Reserves Inc. the OK for up to 400 additional housing units on the school grounds and in area known as North Laie.

The Council Planning Committee on Monday gave initial approval to a new draft of the Koolauloa Sustainable Communities Plan, allowing for the 400 additional housing units. Bill 1 (2017) will now go to the full Council for the second of three required readings.

The plan is supported by community members who argue more housing is critical, but opposed by those who say the additional houses would take away valuable agricultural land and overtax an already overburdened Kamehameha Highway as well as other infrastructure.

HRI President Eric Beaver said Monday that the dormitory beds will be for BYUH students, while the 400 additional housing units are necessary to provide workforce housing to accommodate faculty and staff as well as members of the Laie community.

HRI operates the land under BYUH and the Polynesian Culture Center, which together form Laie’s geographical and cultural hub, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

BYUH officials have expanded by adding new levels to formerly two-story dormitory buildings to make three-story structures to accommodate more students, but the campus is now “maxed out,” Beaver said.

BYUH officials May 2 submitted to the city Department of Planning and Permitting plans for three additional single-student dormitories and two more apartment buildings for married-couple students, according to records provided by DPP.

The proposal for a land use boundary amendment is for just under 15 acres within the existing campus footprint and is part of a plan to increase enrollment to 3,500 students from the existing 2,900, the document said.

As for what’s before the Council, Planning Chairman Ikaika Anderson has proposed a “compromise plan” for 200 additional units within the BYUH property as well as 200 more units in what’s being described as North Laie, at the Laie- Malaekahana border.

While several expansion critics chastised Anderson for backing off of his previous position for no development, he pointed out that HRI originally sought 875 homes throughout 300 acres in both Laie and Malaekahana.

About 40 people testified either for or against expansion while many more people — including those wearing blue “Envision Laie” T-shirts from HRI and others wearing green “Keep the Country Country” T-shirts from the Defend Oahu Coalition — packed the hallway outside.

There was impassioned testimony from both sides, and several people pointed out that they have family members and friends at odds with their position on the issue.

Laie resident Saili Levi, who supports expansion, said his family moved to the North Shore from Samoa in the 1990s. After leaving high school he and his wife, also a Laie native, went to the mainland because they could not afford to live here.

But they moved home “to give our children the same lifestyle that we had growing up here in Hawaii,” he said. Like others in the community, he lives in a house with extended family.

Despite earning a combined income in excess of $100,000 annually, “there’s no house that we can look forward to buying in Laie,” he said.

Michael Kirk-Kuwaye, a Kaaawa resident for 30 years, said he understands that affordable housing is a concern both in the district and throughout the island.

“I believe most of us in Koolauloa have had a family member or friend who had to move because of the high cost of housing,” Kirk- Kuwaye said. “But in our district I’m afraid that geography and infrastructure trumps large-scale housing and business development. Koolauloa is a geographically isolated area serviced by a single double-lane highway with an average highway speed limit of 35 miles per hour.”

Honolulu’s urban core has the geography and infrastructure to support additional housing, including a massive rail project, he said.

The Koolauloa plan is supposed to guide any growth for the area from Kawela Bay to Kaaawa, but the Malaekahana-Laie section has drawn the most disagreement and split the community.